Alexander Paterson (penologist)

Paterson served in the Bermondsey Battalion (the Queens) of the London Regiment during World War I, enlisting as a private but reaching the rank of Captain and receiving a Military Cross.

[3] In his views, the prison system should not dehumanize: It should further provide such humanising and socialising influences as may be introduced from the normal world outside, and so far as is compatible with discipline and control, allow each man to develop along the lines of his own personality.

During his long tenure he became the foremost authority on prisons in the world, visited many countries throughout the Empire and beyond to advise on penal matters, and was an expert witness before many parliamentary and departmental committees.

In 1935 at the International Penal and Penitentiary Congress held in Berlin he led a successful attempt to thwart the Nazis hijacking the whole conference for propaganda purposes.

During the Second World War, apart from visiting the West African colonies and war-blasted Malta, he was sent to Canada to sort the refugee sheep from the Nazi goats among the 'enemy alien' internees' sent there from Britain.